The symbiotic theatre: an evolutionary view of what's inside our heads apart from brain.
With apologies to Wole Soyinka

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Jero's Demon

Jero's demon at rest

Sethren, one of my disciples, oh yes, that learned lady with the complicated name, has pointed out that in my last revelation concerning how a piece of kindling wood may become a demon, I made an elementary error. “The purpose,” she proclaimed to the street at large, and her voice is neither dulcet nor low, “of the collar which you were trying to hammer onto the seat tube using the intermediary of a so-called demon, has a purpose, which is to hold the seat post, which in turn supports the saddle, in a vice-like grip, transmitted by virtue of a lever and a cam. In order to force the collar down onto the seat tube, you opened the cam. The seat post was free. Why, oh Brother Jero, did you not merely take the seat post and saddle out, leaving the collar open to the sky, and then wallop the fucker with a rubber hammer?”
Sethren, I have always taught that women are equal to men in every way—you who have been with me from the beginning of my ministry will remember that this is why we say sethren and not brethren. But this did not mean, sethren, that women were equal to me. In wisdom, judgement, and understanding. No, nor men neither, sether Albert.
Nevertheless, here I have to bow to a greater wisdom, the wisdom of the metaverse, and events therein. At a trivial level, sether Pritchard-Achebe-Wajda has a point. But that point merely emphasises my rightness. Suppose the piece of wood was pointless. Suppose sether Pritchard-Achebe-Wajda’s method rendered that piece of wood entirely redundant in any logical, mechanical, methodological sense. Why then, what do we have? We have a piece of kindling wood that has seized its chance, become a demon, inserted itself into a niche in the metaverse where there was no demand, no call for it, and, despite the fact that I used the actual piece of wood to light the fire two nights ago, is still there, in the metaverse, allying with other demons, with concepts, transmission of force, with things, hammers and bicycles, with acts, hitting the fucker with a rubber hammer. It is out there, its form and colour and use, in a digital image. If I had not burnt it (kindling is scarce on the Huddersfield ringroad, and the nights are growing cooler) it might have been preserved, found its place in the first great Museum of Evoculture, as the first demon to become known to the general run of humankind. But that is no matter. It exists, and may do so as long as the human species. It shall be called “Jero’s demon”, and in time, mayhap a Jero; and finally, when is fully integrated into the metaverse, just a jero, a common or garden ordinary word for a thing universally acknowledged.

Blog Archive

About Me

Old man, still puzzled, amused, horrified by the world. Question struck me, why are human beings, individually so intelligent, collectively so stupid? We have religious, political, factual beliefs that look like certainties. Yet if one lot is right (Yaweh is God, debt is sin) the rest of us are in error. That means most of us are wrong most of the time. How’s that work?
Seems we’re not rational creatures, though one of our special tricks is we can “do” reason. Our big brains are an environment where culture evolves. Survival is the driving force of culture, and a lie can usually survive better than the truth. Culture? Darwinian process in the virtual space where all our brains meet—not mystical, any more than cyberspace. Real, where processes continue. Needs discussion. So I blog about it.
I also have a life. A novel, Bad to the Bone, some plays on. I read, eat, drink a lot. My grandchildren say I swear too much, but what’s just enough? Crazy about mountain and road biking. I talk a bit, my wife says. Love music. The person who I have most admired ever is Wangari Maathai. Brother Jero is just the voice that comes to me when I try to blog about Evoculture.